Android Java course week five

Here are my notes from this week’s course, plus a Google I/O 2010 session video on “Android UI Design Patterns” after the notes.

You can read my previous weeks’ notes by clicking the appropriate link: week 1 notes | week 2 notes | week 3 notes | week 4 notes.

• Today's #AndroidJava class is skinning and styling; check out the free @OreillyMedia and @creativeLIVE course at http://bit.ly/androidjava #
• Note: The course sample code git folder name changed from "Class_2_Twitter_Client" to "Course_2_Twitter_Client", so you may need to re-pull from github #
• If you do repull source from github, remember to set consumer_key and consumer_secret_key in res/raw/oauth.properties #
• Topics covered: Themes, Menus and Buttons, Text Area and List, and Small Screens #
• Cast of characters this week: Themes, Styles, Selector, scaled pixels (SPs), and density independent pixels (DIPs) #
• Instructor uses Creative Commons licensed icons from http://bit.ly/9bhUqx in his Menus and Buttons example http://bit.ly/d662q2 #AndroidJava #
• Tip: XML graphics give resolution and form factor independent gfx for free, otherwise read up on 9-patch http://bit.ly/cNk2iH #
• Another tip: To fully style list items, you need to set the background on the view as well as the list selector style on the list #
• Follow these guidelines to make sure your #AndroidJava app is available for and supports various hardware screen sizes http://bit.ly/aGwpzn #
• Homework: Make your own theme, styling and exploring all the options and screen size alternate resources from today's class #AndroidJava #